Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in West Virginia
estate
My mother passed away in Jan 2007. She gave her husband and myself equal shares of the property thru a deed. Her husband now wants to buy me out. He went to the bank to buy me and the bank done a deed search and found an open estate from the person my mother bought the house from. The estate has been open for 6 yrs. He has filed an appraisement and it is well past time for the settlement which we cannot get him to do.. What are our options? Do we have any legal options to make him close the estate?
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: estate
From your standpoint, you should take the money and give a deed with special warranty only. The technical lien, or risk that a creditor in the previous estate will bring an action to subject the property to sale to satisfy the debt of the other decedent falls on the buyer. The mistake was made when you mother purchased the property without requiring the funds be held in escrow until the estate was closed. I presume she did not have a title search done by a lawyer who would have so advised her. One possible solution now, is for your mother's widower to secure title insurance. After 10 years, most title examiners will ignore an open estate as long as all the interest owners have signed off on a deed.
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